Biographical Sketch and Contributions to the Economics Department
Hadi Salehi Esfahani
I am a Professor of Economics and the Director of Global Studies Initiative at the College of LAS, at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I am currently serving as the Editor of the Quarterly Review
of Economics and Finance and the President of Middle East Economic Association. I have has also on
occasion worked for the World Bank as a visiting economist and a consultant.
I received my B.Sc. in engineering from Tehran University and Ph.D. in economics from the University
of California at Berkeley in 1984. I have been with the UIUC since then.
My theoretical and empirical research is in the field of political economy of development. I have worked
on the role of politics and governance in fiscal, trade, labor, and regulatory policies. My articles have
appeared in journals The Economic Journal, Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Development
Economics, International Economic Review, Oxford Economic Papers, and World Development, among
others. In recent years, I have shifted the geographic focus of my research toward Middle Eastern and
North African countries, though I continue to work on cross-country comparisons. I am currently working
on a grant-supported project on the determinants of energy prices in global markets, combining a system
of bilateral trade with political economy models of resource pricing at the country level.
Besides my research, I have contributed to the Department and the University by teaching undergraduate
and graduate courses. I teach a popular course on principles of macroeconomics for about 230 freshmen,
engaging them in theoretical and policy debates in macroeconomics, making them excited about the
subject and encouraging them to take it seriously. At the masters' level, I teach a macroeconomics course
for business executives, which also receives very high marks from the students, who are themselves
accomplished professionals. At the PhD level, I teach a course on the political economy of development
policies, which is a vibrant research area and provides background for dissertation work.
In the Department, I help with the organization of workshops and participate in committees that I am
asked to serve. I also contribute actively by identifying recruiting high quality PhD students. At the
College of LAS, I contribute as Director of Global Studies Initiative to organize courses and lectures with
an emphasis on globalization. At the University level, I have been serving on a number of committees
supporting the Center for Global Studies (CGS), the Center for South Asian Middle Eastern Studies
(CSAMES), Program on Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security (ADCIS), Gender
Equity Council, and the Center for Advanced Study's Initiative on Immigration: History and Policy. I also
regularly present lectures and offer media interviews on Middle Eastern and global economic issues.
Finally, I have been active in the profession not only by participating in conferences and giving seminars,
but also by organizing conferences and panels at the UIUC and elsewhere.